never forgive her for gaining the heart of the king her husband, and
leaving no influence for his wise, clever brother. The Count de
Provence is avaricious and crafty. He sees that an abyss has opened
before the throne of the lilies, and that it will not close again!
It must, therefore, be filled up! A reconciliation will not be
possible in a natural way, and artificial methods must be found to
accomplish it. Louis XVI. will not be saved, and Marie Antoinette
shall not be! The two, perhaps, can fill up the abyss that yawns
between the throne of the lilies and the French people. They,
perhaps, may fill it up, and then a way may be made for the Count de
Provence, the successor of his brother.
The Count d'Artois was once the friend of the queen, the only one of
the royal family who wished her well, and who defended her sometimes
against the hatred of the royal aunts and sisters-in-law, and the
crafty brother. But while living in Coblentz, the Count d'Artois had
become the embittered enemy of Marie Antoinette. He had heard it so
often said on all sides that the queen by her levity, her
extravagance, and her intrigues, was the cause of all, that she
alone had brought about the revolution, that he at last believed it,
and turned angrily against the royal woman, whose worst offence in
the eyes of the prince lay in this, that she had been the occasion
of his enforced exile to Coblentz.
And Marie Antoinette knew all these intrigues which were forged by
the prince in Coblentz against herself--knew about all the calumnies
that were set in circulation there; she read the libels and
pamphlets which the storm-wind of revolution shook from the dry tree
of monarchy like withered autumn leaves, and scattered through all
France, that they might be everywhere found and read.
"They will kill me," she would often say, with a sigh, after reading
these pamphlets steeped with hate, and written in blood--" yes, they
will kill me, but with me they will kill the king and the monarchy
too. The revolution will triumph over us all, and hurl us all
together down into the grave."
But still she would make efforts to control the revolution and
restore the monarchy again out of its humiliations. The Emperor
Joseph II., brother of the queen, once said of himself, "I am a
royalist, because that is my business." Marie Antoinette was a
royalist not because it was her business; she was a royalist by
conviction, a royalist in her soul, her mind, and her inmost nature.
For this she would defend the monarchy; for this she would contend
against the revolution, until she should either constrain it to
terms or be swallowed up in it.
All her efforts, all her cares, were directed only to this, to
kindle in the king the same courage that animated her, to stir him
with the same fire that burned in her soul. But alas! Louis XVI. was
no doubt a good man and a kind father, but he was no king. He had no
doubt the wish to restore the monarchy, but he lacked the requisite
energy and strong will. Instead of controlling the revolution with a
fiery spirit, he sought to conciliate it by concession and mild
measures; and instead of checking it, he himself went down before
it.
But Marie Antoinette could not and would not give up hope. As the
king would not act, she would act for him; as he would not take part
in politics, she would do so for him. With glowing zeal she plunged
into business, spent many hours each day with the ministers and
dependants of the court, corresponded with foreign lands, with her
brother the Emperor Leopold, and her sister, Queen Caroline of
Naples, wrote to them in a cipher intelligible only to them, and
sent the letters through the hands of secret agents, imploring of
them assistance and help for the monarchy.
In earnest labor, in unrelieved care and business, the queen's days
now passed; she sang, she laughed no more; dress had no longer
charms for her; she had no more conferences with Mademoiselle
Bertin, her milliner; her hairdresser, M. Leonard, had no more calls
upon his genius for new coiffures for her fair hair; a simple, dark
dress, that was the toilet of the queen, a lace handkerchief round
the neck, and a feather was her only head-dress.
Once she had rejoiced in her beauty, and smiled at the flatteries
which her mirror told her when it reflected her face; now she looked
with indifference at her pale, worn face, with its sharp grave
features, and it awoke no wonder within her when the mirror told her
that the queen of France, in spite of her thirty-six years, was old;
that the roses on her cheeks had withered, and that care had drawn
upon her brow those lines which age could not yet have done. She did
not grieve over her lost beauty; she looked with complacency at that
matron of six-and-thirty years whose beautiful hair showed the
traces of that dreadful night in October. She had her picture
painted, in order to send it to London, to the truest of her
friends, the Princess Lamballe, and with her own hands she wrote
beneath it the words: "Your sorrows have whitened your hair."
And yet in this life full of cares, full of work, full of pain and
humiliation--in these sad days of trouble and resignation, there
were single gleams of sunshine, scattered moments of happiness.
It was a ray of sunshine when this sad winter in the Tuileries was
past, and the States-General allowed the royal family to go to St.
Cloud and spend the summer there. Certainly it was a new humiliation
for the king to receive permission to reside in his own summer
palace of St. Cloud. But the States-General called themselves the
pillars of the throne, and the king who sat upon this shaking throne
was very dependent upon its support.
In St. Cloud there was at least a little freedom, a little solitude
and stillness. The birds sang in the foliage, the sun lighted up the
broad halls of the palace, in which a few faithful ones gathered
around the queen and recalled at least a touch of the past happiness
to her brow. In St. Cloud she was again the queen, she held her
court there. But how different was this from the court of former
days.
No merry laughter, no cheerful singing resounded through these
spacious halls; no pleasant ladies, in light, airy, summer costume
swept through the fragrant apartments; M. d'Adhemar no longer sits
at the spinet, and sings with his rich voice the beautiful arias
from the opera "Richard of the Lion Heart," in which royalty had its
apotheosis, and in which the singer Garat had excited all Paris to
the wildest demonstrations of delight! And not all Paris, but
Versailles as well, and in Versailles the royal court!
Louis XVI. himself had been in rapture at the aria which Garat sang
with his flexible tenor voice in so enchanting a manner--"Oh,
Richard! oh, mon roi!"--an aria which had once procured him a
triumph in the very theatre. For when Garat began this air with his
full voice, and every countenance was directed to the box where the
royal family were sitting, the whole theatre rose, and the hundreds
upon hundreds present had joined in the loud, jubilant strains--"Oh,
Richard! oh, mon roi!" Louis XVI. was grateful to the spirited
singer, who, in that stormy time, had the courage to publicly offer
him homage, and he had therefore acceded to the request of the
queen, that Garat should be invited to the private concerts of the
queen at Versailles, and give her instruction on those occasions in
the art of singing.
Marie Antoinette thought of those pleasant days of the past, as she
sat in the still, deserted music-room, where the instruments stood
silent by the wall--where there were no hands to entice the cheerful
melodies from the strings, as there had once been.
"I wish that I had never sung duets with Garat," whispered the queen
to herself. "The king allowed me, but yet I ought not to have done
it. A queen has no right to be free, merry, and happy. A queen can
practise the fine arts only alone, and in the silence of her own
apartments. I would I had never sung with Garat." [Footnote: The
queen's own words.--See "Memoires de Madame de Campan," vol. ii.]
She sat down before the spinet and opened it. Her fingers glided
softly over the keys, and for the first time, in long months of
silence, the room resounded with the tones of music.
But, alas! it was no cheerful music which the fingers of the queen
drew from the keys; it was only the notes of pain, only cries of
grief; and yet they recalled the happy by-gone times--those golden,
blessed days, when the Queen of France was the friend of the arts,
and when she received her early teacher, the great maestro and
chevalier, Gluck, in Versailles; when she took sides for him against
the Italian maestro Lully, and when all Paris divided into two
parties, the Gluckists and Lullyists, waging a bloodless war against
each other. Happy Paris! At that time the interests of art alone
busied all spirits, and the battle of opinions was conducted only
with the pen. Gluck owed it to the mighty influence of the queen
that his opera "Alcestes" was brought upon the stage; but at its
first representation the Lullyists gained the victory, and condemned
it. In despair, Gluck left the opera-house, driven by hisses into
the dark street. A friend followed him and detained him, as he was
hurrying away, and spoke in the gentlest tones. But Gluck
interrupted him with wild violence: "Oh, my friend!" cried he,
falling on the neck of him who was expressing his kindly sympathy,
"'Alcestes' has fallen!" But his friend pressed his hand, and said,
"Fallen? Yes, 'Alcestes' has fallen! It has fallen from heaven!"
The queen thought of this as she sat before the spinet--thought how
moved Gluck was when he related this answer of his friend, and that
he, who had been so kind, was the Duke d'Adhemar.
She had thanked him for this gracious word by giving him her hand to
kiss, and Adhemar, kneeling, had pressed his lips to her hand. And
that was the same Baron Adhemar who was now at Coblentz assisting
the prince to forge libels against herself, and who was himself the
author of that shameless lampoon which ridiculed the musical studies
of the queen, and even the duet which she had sung with Garat!
Softly glided her fingers over the keys, softly flowed over her
pale, sunken cheeks two great tears--tears which she shed as she
thought of the past--tears full of bitterness and pain! But no, no,
she would not weep; she shook the tears from her eyes, and struck
the keys with a more vigorous touch. Away, away, those recollections
of ingratitude and faithlessness! Art shall engage her thoughts in
the music-room, and to Gluck and "Alcestes" the hour belongs!
The queen struck the keys more firmly, and began to play the noble
"Love's Complaint," of Gluck's opera. Unconsciously her lips opened,
and with loud voice and intense passionate expression, she sang the
words, "Oh, crudel, non posso in vere, tu lo sui, senza dite!"
At the first notes of this fine voice the door in the rear of the
room had lightly opened--the one leading to the garden--and the
curly head of the dauphin was thrust in. Behind him were Madame de
Tourzel and Madame Elizabeth, who, like the prince, were listening
in breathless silence to the singing of the queen.
As she ended, and when the voice of Marie Antoinette was choked in a
sigh, the dauphin flew with, extended arms across the hall to his
mother, "Mamma queen," cried he, beaming with joy, "are you singing
again? I thought my dear mamma had forgotten how to sing. But she
has begun to sing again, and we are all happy once more."
Marie Antoinette folded the little fellow in her arms, and did not
contradict him, and nodded smilingly to the two ladies, who now
approached and begged the queen's pardon for yielding to the
pressing desires of the dauphin, and entering without permission.
"Oh, mamma, my dear mamma queen," said the prince, in the most
caressing way, "I have been very industrious to-day; the abbe was
satisfied with me, and praised me, because I wrote well and learned
my arithmetic well. Won't you give me a reward for that, mamma
queen?"
"What sort of a reward do you want, my child?" asked the queen,
smiling.
"Say, first, that you will give it."
"Well, yes, I will give it, my little Louis; now tell me what it
is."
"Mamma queen, I want you to sing your little Louis a song; and," he
added, nodding at the two ladies, "that you allow these friends of
mine to hear it."
"Well, my child, I will sing for you," answered Marie Antoinette,
"and our good friends shall hear it."
The countenance of the boy beamed with pleasure; with alacrity he
rolled an easy-chair up to the piano, and took his seat in it in the
most dignified manner.
Madame Elizabeth seated herself near him on a tabouret, and Madame
de Tourzel leaned on the back of the dauphin's chair.
"Now sing, mamma, now sing," asked the dauphin.
Marie Antoinette played a prelude, and as her eyes fell upon the
group they lighted up with joy, and then turned upward to God with a
look of thankfulness.
A few minutes before she had felt alone and sad: she had thought of
absent friends in bitter pain, and now, as if fate would remind her
of the happiness which still remained to her, it sent her the son
and the sister-in-law, both of whom loved her so tenderly, and the
gentle and affectionate Madame de Tourzel, whom Marie Antoinette
knew to be faithful and constant unto death.
The flatterers and courtiers, the court ladies and cavaliers, are no
longer in the music-room; the enraptured praises no longer accompany
the songs of the queen; but, out of the easy-chair, in which the
Duchess de Polignac had sat so often, now looks the beautiful blond
face of her son, and his beaming countenance speaks more eloquently
to her than the flatteries of friends. On the tabouret, now occupied
by her sister-in-law, Madame Elizabeth, De Dillon has often sat--the
handsome Dillon, and his glowing, admiring looks have often,
perhaps, in spite of his own will, said more to the queen than she
allowed herself to understand, as her heart thrilled in sweet pain
and secret raptures under those glances! How pure and innocent is
the face which now looks out from this chair--the face of an angel
who bears God in his heart and on his countenance.
"Pray for me; pray that God may let me drink of Lethe, that I may
forget all that has ever been! Pray that I may be satisfied with
what remains, and that my heart may how in humility and patience!"
Thus thought the queen as she began to sing, not one of her great
arias which she had studied with Garat, and which the court used to
applaud, but one of those lovely little songs, full of feeling and
melody, which did not carry one away in admiration, but which filled
the heart with joy and deep emotion.
With suspended breath, and great eyes directed fixedly to Marie
Antoinette, the dauphin listened, but gradually his eyes fell, and
motionless and with grave face the child sat in his arm-chair.
Marie Antoinette saw it, and began to sing one of those cradle-songs
of the "Children's Friend," which Berquin had written, and Gretry
had set to music so charmingly.
How still was it in the music-room, how full and touching was the
voice of the queen as she began the last verse:
"Oh, sleep, my child, now so to sleep. Thy crying grieves my heart;
Thy mother, child, has cause to weep, But sleep and feel no smart."
[Footnote: "Dors, mon enfant, clos ta paupiere, Tes cris me
dechirent la coeur; Dors, mon enfant, ta pauvre more A bien assez de
sa douleur."]
All was still in the music-room when the last words were sung;
motionless, with downcast eyes, sat the dauphin long after the sad
voice of the queen had ceased.
"Ah, see," cried Madame Elizabeth, with a smile, "I believe now our
Louis has fallen asleep."
But the child quickly raised his head and looked at the smiling
young princess with a reproachful glance.
"Ah, my dear aunt," cried he, reprovingly, "how could any one sleep
when mamma sings?" [Footnote: The dauphin's own words.--See
Beauchesne, vol. i., p. 27.]
Marie Antoinette drew the child within her arms, and her countenance
beamed with delight. Never had the queen received so grateful a
compliment from the most flattering courtier as these words of her
fair-haired boy conveyed, who threw his arms around her neck and
nestled up to her.
The Queen of France is still a rich, enviable woman, for she has
children who love her; the Queen of France ought not to look without
courage into the future, for the future belongs to her son. The
throne which now is so tottering and insecure, shall one day belong
to him, the darling of her heart, and therefore must his mother
struggle with all her power, and with all the means at her command
contend for the throne for the Dauphin of France, that he may
receive the inheritance of his father intact, and that his throne
may not in the future plunge down into the abyss which the
revolution has opened.
No, the dauphin, Louis Charles, shall not then think reproachfully
of his parents; he shall not have cause to complain that through
want of spirit and energy they have imperilled or lost the sacred
heritage of his fathers.
No, Queen Marie Antoinette may not halt and lose courage,--not even
when her husband has done so, and when he is prepared to humbly bow
his sacred head beneath that yoke of revolution, which the heroes
and orators selected by the nation have wished to put upon his neck
in the name of France.
This makes hers a double duty, to be active, to plan, and work; to
keep her head erect, and look with searching eye in all directions
to see whence help and deliverance are to come.
Not from without can they come, not from foreign monarchs, nor from
the exiled princes. Foreign armies which might march into the
country would place the king, who had summoned them to fight with
his own people, in the light of a traitor; and the moment that they
should pass the frontiers of France, the wrath of the nation would
annihilate the royal couple.
Only from those who had called down the danger could help come. The
chiefs of the revolution, the men who had raised their threatening
voices against the royal couple, must be won over to become the
advocates of royalty. And who was more powerful, who more
conspicuous among all these chiefs of the revolution, and all the
orators of the National Assembly, than Count Mirabeau!
When he ascended the Speaker's tribune of the National Assembly all
were silent, and even his opponents listened with respectful
attention to his words, which found an echo through all France; when
he spoke, when from his lips the thunder of his speeches resounded,
the lightning flashed in his eyes, and his head was like the head of
a lion, who, with the shaking of his mane and the power of his
anger, destroyed every thing which dared to put itself in his way.
And the French nation loved this lion, and listened in reverential
silence to the thunder of his speech, and the throne shook before
him. And the excitable populace shouted with admiration whenever
they saw the lion, and deified that Count Mirabeau, who, with his
powerul, lace-cuffed hand, had thrust these words into the face of
his own caste: "They have done nothing more than to give themselves
the trouble to be born."
The people loved this aristocrat, who was abhorred by his family and
the men of his own rank; this count whom, the nobility hated because
the Third Estate loved him.
CHAPTER XVII.
MIRABEAU.
"Count Mirabeau must be won over," Count de la Marck ventured to say
one day to Marie Antoinette. "Count Mirabeau is now the mightiest
man in France, and he alone is able to bring the nation back again
to the throne."
"It is he," replied the queen, with a glow, "who is most to blame
for alienating the nation from the throne. Never will the renegade
count be forgiven! Never can the king stoop so low as to pardon this
apostate, who frivolously professes the new religion of 'liberty,'
and disowns the faith of his fathers."
"Your majesty," replied Count de la Marck, with a sigh, "it may be
that in the hand of this renegade lies the future of your son."
The queen trembled, and the proud expression on her features was
softened.
"The future of my son?" said she. "What do you mean by that? What
has Count Mirabeau to do with the dauphin? His wrath follows us
only, his hatred rests upon us alone! I grant that at present he is
powerful, but over the future he has no sway. I hope, on the
contrary, that the future will avenge the evil that Mirabeau does to
us in the present."
"But how does it help, madame, if vengeance hurries him on?" asked
Count de la Marck, sadly. "The temple which Samson pulled down was
not built again, that Samson might be taken from its ruins; it
remained in its dust and fragments, and its glory was gone forever.
Oh, I beseech your majesty, do not listen to the voice of your
righteous indignation, but only to the voice of prudence. Master
your noble, royal heart, and seek to reconcile your adversaries, not
to punish them!"
"What do you desire of me?" asked Marie Antoinette, in amazement.
"What shall I do?"
"Your majesty must chain the lion," whispered the count. "Your
majesty must have the grace to change Mirabeau the enemy into
Mirabeau the devoted ally and friend!"
"Impossible, it is impossible!" cried the queen, in horror. "I
cannot descend to this. I never can view with friendly looks this
monster who is accountable for the horrors of those October days. I
can only speak of this man, who has created his reputation out of
his crimes, who is a faithless son, a faithless husband, a faithless
lover, a faithless aristocrat, and a faithless royalist--I can only
speak of him in words of loathing, scorn, and horror! No, rather die
than accept assistance from Count Mirabeau! Do you not know, count,
that he honors me his queen with his enmity and his contempt? Is it
not Mirabeau who caused the States-General to accept the words 'the
person of the king is inviolable,' and to reject the words 'and that
of the queen?' Was it not Mirabeau who once, when my friends
exhorted him to moderation, and besought him to soften his words
about the Queen of France, had the grace to answer with a shrug,
'Well, she may keep her life!' Was it not Mirabeau who was to blame
for the October days? Was it not Mirabeau who publicly said: 'The
king and the queen are lost. The people hate them so, that they
would even destroy their corpses?'" [Footnote: The queen's own
words.--See Goncourt, "Marie Antoinette," p. 305.]
"Your majesty, Mirabeau said that, not as a threat, but out of pity,
and deep concern and sympathy."
"Sympathy!" repeated the queen, "Mirabeau, who hates us!"
"No, your majesty, Mirabeau, who honors his queen, who is ready to
give his life for you and for the monarchy, if your majesty will
forgive him and receive him as a defender of the throne!"
The queen shuddered, and looked in astonishment and terror at the
excited face of Count de la Marck. "Are you speaking of Mirabeau,
the tribune of the people," she asked, "the fiery orator of the
National Assembly?"
"I am speaking of Count Mirabeau, who yesterday was the enemy of the
throne, and who to-day will be a zealous defender, if your majesty
will only have it so--if your majesty will only speak a gracious
word to him."
"It is impossible, it is impossible!" whispered the queen.
De la Marck continued: "Since he has frequently seen your majesty--
since he has had occasion to observe your proud spirit and lofty
resignation--a change has taken place in the character of Mirabeau.
He is subdued as the lion is subdued, when the beaming eye of a pure
soul looks it in the face. He might be of service again, he might be
reconciled! He writes, he speaks of his exalted queen with
admiration, with enthusiasm; he glows with a longing desire to
confess his sins at the feet of your majesty, and to receive your
forgiveness."
"Does the king know this?" asked Marie Antoinette. "Has any one told
his majesty?"
"I should not have taken the liberty of speaking to your majesty
about these things if the king had not authorized me," replied Count
de la Marck, bowing. "His majesty recognizes it to be a necessary
duty to gain Mirabeau to the throne, and he hopes to have in this
matter the cooperation of his exalted wife."
Marie Antoinette sadly shook her head. "I will speak with his
majesty about it," she said, with a sigh, "but only under
circumstances of extreme urgency can I submit to this, I tell you in
advance."
But the case was of extreme urgency, and when Marie Antoinette had
seen it to be so, she kept her word and conformed to it, and
commissioned Count de la Marck to tell his friend Mirabeau that the
queen would grant him an audience.
But in order that this audience might be of advantage, it must be
conducted with the deepest secrecy. No one ought to suspect that
Mirabeau, the tribune of the people, the adored hero of the
revolution--Mirabeau, who ruled the National Assembly, and Paris
itself, whom the freest of the free hailed as their apostle and
saviour, who with the power of his eloquence ruled the spirits of
thousands and hundreds of thousands of men,--no one could suspect
that the leader of the revolution would now become the devoted
dependant upon the monarchy, and the paid servant of the king.
Two conditions Mirabeau had named, when Count de la Marck had tried
to gain him over in the name of the king: an audience with the
queen, and the payment of his debts, together with a monthly pension
of a hundred louis-d'or.
"I am paid, but not bought," said Mirabeau, as he received his first
payment. "Only one of my conditions is fulfilled, but what will
become of the other?"
"And so you still insist on having an audience with the queen?"
asked La Marck.
"Yes, I insist upon it," said Mirabeau, with naming eyes. "If I am
to battle and speak for this monarchy, I must learn to respect it.
If I am to believe in the possibility of restoring it, I must
believe in its capacity of life; I must see that I have to deal with
a brave, decided, noble man. The true and real king here is Marie
Antoinette; and there is only one man in the whole surroundings of
Louis XVI., and that is his wife. I must speak with her, in order to
hear and to see whether she is worth the risking of my life, honor,
and popularity. If she really is the heroine that I hold her to be,
we will both united save the monarchy, and the throne of Louis XVI.,
whose king is Marie Antoinette. The moment is soon to come when we
shall learn what a woman and a child can accomplish, and whether the
daughter of Maria Theresa with the dauphin in her arms cannot stir
the hearts of the French as her great mother once stirred the
Hungarians." [Footnote:Mirabeau's own words.--See "Marie Antoinette
et sa Famille." Far M. de Lescure. p. 478.]
"Do you then believe the danger is so great," asked La Marck, "that
it is necessary to resort to extreme, heroic measures?"
Mirabeau grasped his arm with a sudden movement, and an expression
of solemn earnestness filled his lion-like face. "I am convinced of
it," he answered, "and I will add, the danger is so great, that if
we do not soon meet it and in heroic fashion, it will not be
possible to control it. There is no other security for the queen
than through the reestablishment of the royal authority. I believe
of her, that she does not desire life without her crown, and I am
certain that, in order to keep her life, she must before all things
preserve her crown. And I will help her and stand by her in it; and
for this end I must myself speak with her and have an audience."
[Footnote: Mirabeau's own words.--See Count de la Marck, "Mirabeau,"
vol. 21. p. 50.]
And Mirabeau, the first man in the revolution had his audience with
Marie Antoinette, the dying champion of monarchy.
On the 3rd of July, 1790, the meeting of the queen and Mirabeau took
place in the park of St. Cloud. Secrecy and silence surrounded them,
and extreme care had been taken to let no one suspect, excepting a
few intimate friends, what was taking place on this sequestered,
leaf-embowered grass-plat of St. Cloud.
A bench of white marble, surrounded by high oleander and taxus
trees, stood at the side of this grass-plat. It was the throne on
which Marie Antoinette should receive the homage of her new knight.
Mirabeau had on the day before gone from Paris to the estate of his
niece, the Marchioness of Aragan. There he spent the night; and the
next morning, accompanied by his nephew, M. de Saillant, he walked
to the park of St. Cloud.
At the nether gate of the park, which had been left open for this
secret visit, Mirabeau took leave of his companion, and extended him
his hand.
"I do not know," he said, and his voice, which so often had made the
windows of the assembly hall shake with its thunder, was now weak
and tremulous, "I do not know why this dreadful presentiment creeps
over me all at once, and why voices whisper to me, 'Turn, back,
Mirabeau, turn back! Do not step over the threshold of this door,
for there you are stepping into your open grave!' "
"Follow this voice, uncle, there is still time," implored M. de
Saillant; "it is with me as it is with you. I, too, have a sad,
anxious feeling!"
"May they not have laid snares for me here?" whispered Mirabeau,
thoughtfully. "They are capable of every thing, these artful
Bourbons. Who knows whether they have not invited me here to take me
prisoner, and to cast me, whom they hold to be their most dangerous
enemy, into one of their oubliettes, their subterranean dungeons? My
friend," he continued, hastily, "wait for me here, and if in two or
three hours I do not return, hasten to Paris, go to the National
Assembly, and announce to them that Mirabeau, moved by the queen's
cry of distress, has gone to St. Cloud, and is there held a
prisoner."
"I will do it, uncle," said the marquis, "but I do not believe in
any such treachery on the part of the queen or her husband. They
both know that without Mirabeau they are certainly lost, and that
he, perhaps, is able to save them. I fear something entirely
different."
"And what do you fear?"
"I fear your enemies in the National Assembly," said M. de Saillant,
and with a pained expression. "I fear these enraged republicans, who
have begun to mistrust you since you have begun to speak in favor of
royalty and mon archy, and since you have even ventured to defend
the queen personally against the savage and mean attacks which Marat
hurls against Marie Antoinette in his journal, the Ami du Peuplt."
"It is true," said Mirabeau, with a smile, "they have mistrusted me,
these enraged republicans, since then, and they tell me that Petion,
this republican of steel and iron, turned to Danton at the close of
my speech, and said: 'This Mirabeau is dangerous to liberty, for
there is too much of the blood of the count flowing through the
veins of the tribune of the people. Danton answered him with a
smile: 'In that case we must draw off the count's blood from the
tribune of the people, that he may either be cured of his
reactionary disease or die of it!'"
"And when they told Marat, uncle, that you had spoken angrily and
depreciatingly of his attacks upon the queen, he raised his fist
threateningly, and cried: 'Mirabeau is a traitor, who wants to sell
our new, young liberty to the monarchy. But he will meet the fate of
Judas, who sold the Saviour. He will one day atone for it with his
head, for if we tap him for his treachery, we shall do for him what
Judas did for himself. This Mirabeau Judas must take care of
himself."
"And do you suppose that this disputatious little load of a Marat
will hang me?" asked Mirabeau, with a scornful smile.
"I think that you must watch him," answered M. de Saillant. "Last
evening, in the neighborhood of our villa, I met two disguised men,
who, I would swear, were Perion and Marat; and on our way here, as I
looked around, I feel certain that I saw these same disguised
figures following us!"
"What if it be?" answered Mirabeau, raising himself up, and looking
around him with a proud glance. "The lion does not fear the annoying
insect that buzzes about him, he shakes it off with his mane or
destroys it with a single stroke of his paw. And Mirabeau fears just
as little such insects as Petion and Marat; they would much better
keep out of his way. I will tread them under foot, that is all! And
now, farewell, my dear nephew, farewell, and wait for me here!"
He nodded familiarly to his nephew, passed over the threshold, and
entered the park, from whose entrance the popular indignation had
long since removed the obnoxious words, De par la Reine, the garden
belonging now to the king only because the nation willed it so.
Mirabeau hastened with an anxious mind and a light step along the
walk, and again it seemed to him as if dark spirits were whispering
to him, "Turn back, Mirabeau, turn back! for with every step forward
you are only going deeper into your grave." He stopped, and with his
hand-kerchief wiped away the drops of cold sweat which gathered upon
his forehead.
"It is folly," he said, "perfect folly. Truly I am as tremulous as a
girl going to her first rendezvous. Shame on you, Mirabeau, be a
man!"
He shook his head as if he wanted to dispel these evil forebodings,
and hastened forward to meet Count de la Marck, who appeared at the
bending of the allee.
"The queen is already here, and is waiting for you, Mirabeau," said
the marquis, with a slight reproach in his voice.
Mirabeau shrugged his shoulders instead of replying, and went on
more rapidly. There soon opened in front of them a small grass-plat,
surrounded by bushes, and on the bench opposite, the lady in the
white, neat dress, with a straw hat on her arm, her hair veiled with
black lace--that lady was Marie Antoinette.
Mirabeau stopped in his walk, and fixed a long, searching look upon
her. When he turned again to his friend, his face was pale, and bore
plain traces of emotion.
"My friend," whispered he to La Marck, "I know not why, but I have a
strange feeling! I have not wept since the day on which my father
drove me with a curse from the house of my ancestors, but, seeing
yonder woman, I could weep, and an unspeakable sympathy fills my
soul."
The queen had seen him, too, and had grown pale, and turned
tremblingly to the king, who stood beside her, half concealed by the
foliage.
"There is the dreadful man!" said Marie Antoinette, with a shudder.
"My God! a thrill of horror creeps through all my veins, and if I
only look at this monster, I have a feeling as though I should
sicken with loathing!" [Footnote: The queen's own words. See "Madame
du Campan," vol. II.]
"Courage, my dear Marie, courage," whispered the king. "Remember
that the welfare of our future, and of our children, perhaps,
depends upon this interview. See, he is approaching. Receive him
kindly, Marie. I will draw back, for you alone shall have the honor
of this day, and monarchy has in you its fairest representative."
"But remain so near me, sire, that you can hear me if I call for
help," whispered Marie Antoinette.
The king smiled. "Fear nothing, Marie," he said," and believe that
the danger for Mirabeau is greater than for you. The name of
criminal will be fastened not to us, but to Mirabeau, if it shall be
known that he has come to visit us here. I will withdraw, for there
is Mirabeau."
And the king withdrew into the thicket, while Mirabeau stopped near
the queen, and saluted her with a profound bow.
Marie Antoinette rose from her marble seat. At this moment she was
not the queen giving an audience, but the anxious lady, advancing to
meet danger, and desirous to mitigate it by politeness and smiles.
"Come nearer, count," said Marie Antoinette, still standing. But as
he approached, the queen sank slowly upon the seat, and raised her
eyes to Mirabeau, with an almost timid look, who now did not seem to
her a monster, for his mien was disturbed, and his eyes, which had
always been represented as so fearful, had a gentle, respectful
expression.
"Count," said the queen, and her voice trembled a little "count, if
I found myself face to face with an ordinary enemy, a man who was
aiming at the destruction of monarchy, without seeing of what use it
is for the people, I should be taking at this moment a very useless
step. But when one talks with a Mirabeau, one is beyond the ordinary
conditions of prudence, and hope of his assistance is blended with
wonder at the act." [Footnote: The queen's own words.--See "Marie
Antoinette et sa Famille" Par M. de Lescure, p. 484.]
"Madame," cried Mirabeau, deeply moved, "I have not come here as
your enemy, but as your devoted servant, who is ready cheerfully to
give his life if he can be of any service to the monarchy."
"You believe, then, that it is a question of life, or, if you
prefer, of death, which stands between the French people and the
monarchy?" asked the queen, sadly.
"Yes, I am convinced of that," answered Mirabeau. "But I still hope
that we can answer the question in favor of the monarchy, provided
that the right means are applied in season."
"And what, according to your views, are the right means, count?"
Mirabeau smiled and looked with amazement into the noble face of the
queen, who, with such easy composure, had put into this one short
question what for centuries had perplexed the greatest thinkers and
statesmen to answer.
"Will your majesty graciously pardon me if I crave permission,
before I answer, to put a question in like manner to my exalted
queen?"
"Ask on, count," replied Marie Antoinette, with a gentle inclination
of her head.
"Well, madame, this is my question: 'Does your majesty purpose and
aim at the reestablishment of the old regime, and do you deem it
possible to roll the chariot of human history and of politics
backward?"
"You have in your question given the answer as well," said Marie
Antoinette, with a sigh. "It is impossible to reerect the same
edifice out of its own ruins. One must be satisfied if out of them a
house can be built, in which one can manage to live."
"Ah, your majesty," said Mirabeau, with feeling, "this answer is the
first ray of light which breaks through the heavy storm-clouds! The
new day can be descried and hailed with delight! After hearing this
noble answer of your majesty, I look up comforted, and the clouds do
not terrify me longer, for I know that they will soon be past--that
is, if we employ the right means."
"And now I repeat my question, count, What, according to your view,
are the right means?"
"First of all, the recognition of what is wrong," answered Mirabeau,
"and then the cheerful and honest will to do what is found to be
necessary."
"Well, tell me, what is it that is wrong?"
Mirabeau bowed, and then began to speak to her in his clear, sharp
way, which was at the same time so full of energy, of the situation
of France, the relation of the various political parties to one
another, to the court, and the throne. In strongly outlined
sentences he characterized the chiefs of the political clubs, the
leaders of the parties in the National Assembly, and spoke of the
perilous goal which the demagogues, the men of the extreme Left,
aimed at. He did not, from delicacy, speak the word "republican,"
but he gave the queen to understand that the destruction of the
monarchy and the throne, the annihilation of the royal family, was
the ultimate object aimed at by all the raving orators and leaders
of the extreme Left.
The queen had listened to him with eager, fixed attention, and, at
the same time, with a dignified composure; and the earnest,
thoughtful look of her large eyes had penetrated and moved Mirabeau
more and more, so that his words came from his lips like a stream of
fire, and kindled a new hope even in himself.
"All will yet be well," he cried, in conclusion; "we shall succeed
in contending with the hidden powers that wish to undermine your
majesty's throne, and to take from the hands of your enemies these
dangerous weapons of destruction. I shall apply all my power, all my
eloquence to this. I will oppose the undertakings of the demagogues;
I will show myself to be their public opponent, and zealously serve
the monarchy, making use of all such means of help as are adapted to
move men's minds, and not to trouble and terrify them, as if freedom
and self-government were to be taken from them, and yet which will
restore the credit and power of the monarchy."
"Are you, then, with honest and upright heart, a friend of ours?"
asked Marie Antoinette, almost supplicatingly. "Do you wish to
assist us, and stand by us, with your counsel and help?"
Mirabeau met her inquisitive and anxious look with a cordial smile,
a noble and trustworthy expression of face. "Madame," he said, with
his fine, resonant voice, "I defended monarchical principles when I
saw only their weakness, and when I did not know the soul nor the
thoughts of the daughter of Maria Theresa, and little reckoned upon
having such an exalted mediator. I contended for the rights of the
throne when I was only mistrusted, when calumny dogged all my steps,
and declared me guilty of treachery! I served the monarchy, then,
when I knew that from my rightful, but misled king, I should receive
neither kindness nor reward. What shall I do now, when confidence
animates my spirit, and gratitude has made my duties run directly in
the current of my principles? I shall be and remain what I have
always been, the defender of monarchy governed by law, the apostle
of liberty guaranteed by the monarchy." [Footnote: Mirabeau's own
words.--See "Memoires du Comte de Mirabeau," vol III., p. 290.]
"I believe you, count," cried Marie Antoinette, with emotion. "You
will serve us with fidelity and zeal, and with your help all will
yet be well. I promise yon that we will follow your counsels, and
act in concord with you. You will put yourself in communication with
the king; you will consult him about needful matters, and advise him
about the things which are essential to his welfare and that of the
people."
"Madame," replied Mirabeau, "I take the liberty of adding this to
what has already been said. The most necessary thing is that the
royal court leave Paris for a season!"
"That we flee?" asked Marie Antoinette, hastily. "Not flee, but
withdraw," answered Mirabeau. "The exasperated people menace the
monarchy, and therefore the threatened crown must for a while be
concealed from the people's sight, that they may be brought back to
a sense of duty and loyalty. And, therefore, I do not say that the
court must flee; I only say it must leave Paris, for Paris is the
furnace of the revolution! The royal court must withdraw, as soon as
possible, to the very boundaries of France! It must there gather an
army, and put it under the command of some faithful general, and
with this army march against the riotous capital; and I will be
there to smooth the way and open the gates!"
"I thank you, count, I thank you!" cried Marie Antoinette, rising
from her seat. "Now, I doubt no more about the future, for my own
thoughts coincide with those of our greatest statesmen! I, too, am
convinced the court ought to leave Paris--that it must withdraw, in
order to escape new humiliations, and that it ought to return only
in the splendor of its power, and with an army to put the rebels to
flight, and breathe courage into the timid and faithful. Oh! you
must tell the king all this; you must show him that our removal from
Paris is not only a means of salvation to the crown, but to the
people as well. Your words will convince the noblest and best of
monarchs; he will follow your counsels, and, thanks to you, not we
alone, but the monarchy will be saved! No, go to the work, count! Be
active in our behalf; bring your unbounded influence, in favor of
the king and queen, to bear upon all spirits, and be sure that we
shall be grateful to you so long as we live. Farewell, and remember
that my eye will follow all your steps, and that my ears will hear
every word which Mirabeau shall speak in the National Assembly."
Mirabeau bowed respectfully. "Madame," said he, "when your exalted
mother condescended to favor one of her subjects with an audience,
she never dismissed him without permitting the favored one
respectfully to kiss her hand."
"It is true," replied Marie Antoinette, with a pleasant smile, "and
in this, at least, I can follow the example of my great mother!"
And, with inimitable grace, the queen extended her hand to him.
Mirabeau, enraptured, beside himself at this display of courtesy and
favor, dropped upon his knee and pressed his lips to the delicate,
white hand of the queen.
"Madame," cried he, with warmth, "this kiss saves the monarchy!"
[Mirabeau's own words.--See "Memoires de Mirabeau," vol iv., p.
208.]
"If you have spoken the truth, sir," said the queen, with a sigh,
rising and dismissing him, with a gentle inclination of her head.
With excited and radiant looks, Mirabeau returned to his nephew, who
was waiting for him at the gate of the park.
"Oh!" said he, with a breath of relief, laying his hand upon the
shoulder of Saillant, "what have I not heard and seen! She is very
great, very noble, and very unhappy, Victor! But," cried he, with a
loud, earnest voice, "I will save her--I will save her!" [Footnote:
"Marie Antoinette et sa Famille," p 480.]
Mirabeau was in earnest in this purpose; and not because he had been
bought over, but because he had been won--carried away with the
noble aspect of the queen--did he become from this time a zealous
defender of the monarchy, an eloquent advocate in behalf of Marie
Antoinette. But he was not now able to restrain the dashing waves of
revolution; he could not even save himself from being engulfed in
these raging waves.
Mirabeau knew it well, and made no secret of the peril of his
position. On the day when, before the division, he spoke in defence
of the monarchy and the royal prerogative, and undertook to decide
the question of peace or war--on that day he first announced himself
openly for the king, and raised a storm of excitement and disgust in
the National Assembly. Still he spoke right bravely in behalf of the
crown; and while doing so, he cried, "I know well that it is only a
single step from the capitol to the Tarpeian rock!"
Step after step! And these successive steps Mirabeau was soon to
take. Petion had not in vain characterized Mirabeau as the most
dangerous enemy of the republic. Marat had not asserted, without
knowing what he said, that Mirabeau must let all his aristocratic
blood flow from his veins, or bleed to death altogether! Not with
impunity could Mirabeau encounter the rage of parties, and fling
down the gauntlet before them, saying, at the same moment, "He would
defend the monarchy against all attacks, from what side soever, and
from what part soever of the kingdom they might come."
The leaders of the republican factions knew very well how to
estimate the power of Mirabeau; they knew very well that Mirabeau
was able to fit together the fragments of the crown which he had
helped to break. And, to prevent his doing this, they knew that he
must be buried beneath these fragments.
Soon after his interview with the queen--after his dissenting speech
in behalf of the prerogative of the king--Mirabeau began to fail in
health. His enemies said that it was only the result of over-
exertion, and a cold which he had brought on by drinking a glass of
cold water during a speech, in the National Assembly. His friends
whispered about a deadly poison which had been mingled with this
glass of water, in order to rid themselves of this powerful and
dangerous opponent.
Mirabeau believed this; and the increasing torpor of his limbs, the
pains which he felt in his bowels, appeared to him to be the sure
indications of poison given him by his enemies.
The lion, who had been willing to crouch at the foot of the throne
for the purpose of guarding it, was now nothing but a poor, sick
man, whose voice was lost, and whose power was extinguished. For a
season he sought to contend against the malady which was lurking in
his body; but one day, in the midst of a speech which he was making
in behalf of the queen, he sank in a fainting-fit, and was carried
unconsciously to his dwelling. After long efforts on the part of his
physician, the celebrated Cabanis, Mirabeau opened his eyes.
Consciousness was restored, but with it a fixed premonition of his
approaching death.
"I am dying!" he said, softly. "I am bearing in my heart the funeral
crape of the monarchy. These raging partisans want to pluck it out,
deride it, and fasten it to their own foreheads. And this compels
them to break my heart, and this they have done!" [Footnote:
Mirabeau's own words.--See "Memoires sur Mirabeau," vol. iv.,. p.
296.]
Yes, they had broken it--this great strong heart, in which the
funeral crape of monarchy lay. At first the physician and his
friends hoped that it might be possible to overcome his malady, but
Mirabeau was not flattered by any such hope; he felt that the pains
which were racking his body would end only with death.
After one especially painful and distressing night, Mirabeau had his
physician Cabanis and his friend Count de la Marck summoned to his
bed, and extended to them both his hands. "My friends," he said to
them with gentle voice and with peaceful face, "my friends, I am
going to die to-day. When one has been brought to that pass, there
is only one thing that remains to be done: to be perfumed,
tastefully dressed, and surrounded with flowers, so as to fall
agreeably into that last sleep from which there is no waking. So,
call my servants! I must be shaved, dressed, and nicely arrayed. The
window must be opened, that the warm air may stream in, and then
flowers must be brought. I want to die in the sunshine and flowers."
[Footnote: Mirabeau's words.--See "Memoires sur Mirabeau," vol. iv.,
p. 298.]
His friends did not venture to oppose his last wish. The gladiator
wanted to make his last toilet and be elaborately arrayed in order
to fall in the arena of life as a hero falls, and even in death to
excite the wonder and the applause of the public.
All Paris was in this last scene the public of this gladiator; all
Paris had, in these last days of his battle for life, only one
thought, "How is it with Mirabeau? Will he compel the dreadful enemy
Death to retire from before him, or will he fall as the prey of
Death?" This question was written on all faces, repeated in all
houses and in all hearts. Every one wanted to receive an answer from
that still house, with its closely-drawn curtains, where Mirabeau
lived. All the streets which led thither were, during the last three
days before his death, filled with a dense mass of men, and no
carriage was permitted to drive through the neighborhood, lest it
should disturb Mirabeau. The theatres were closed, and, without any
consultation together, the merchants shut their stores as they do on
great days of national fasting or thanksgiving.
On the morning of the fourth day, before life had begun to move in
the streets of Paris, and before the houses were opened, a cry was
heard in the great highways of the city, ringing up into all the
houses, and entering all the agitated hearts that heard it:
"Flowers, bring flowers! Mirabeau wants flowers! Bring roses and
violets for Mirabeau! Mirabeau wants to die amid flowers!"
This cry awoke slumbering Paris the 2d of April, 1791, and, as it
resounded through the streets, windows and doors opened, and
hundreds, thousands of men hastened from all directions toward
Mirabeau's house, carrying nosegays, bouquets, whole baskets of
flowers. One seemed to be transferred from cool, frosty spring
weather to the warm, fragrant days of summer; all the greenhouses,
all the chambers poured out their floral treasures to prepare one
last summer day for the dying tribune of the people. His whole house
was filled with flowers and with fragrance. The hall, the staircase,
the antechamber, and the drawing-room were overflowing with flowers;
and there in the middle of the drawing-room lay Mirabeau upon a
lounge, carefully dressed, shaved and powdered, as if for a royal
festival. The most beautiful of the flowers, the fairest exotics
surrounded his couch, and bent their variegated petals down to the
pale, death-stricken gladiator, who still had power to summon a
smile to his lips, and with one last look of affection to bid
farewell to his weeping friends--farewell to the flowers and the
sunlight!
On his lofty brow, on his smiling lips, there was written, after
Death had claimed him, after the gladiator had fallen, "The dying
one greets you!"
The day of his death was the day of his last triumph; and the
flowers that all Paris sent to him, were to Mirabeau the parting
word of love and admiration!
Four times daily the king had sent to inquire after Mirabeau's
welfare, and when at noon, on the 2d of April, Count de la Marck
brought the tidings of his death, the king turned pale. "Disaster is
hovering over us," he said, sadly, "Death too arrays himself on the
side of our enemies!"
Marie Antoinette was also very deeply moved by the tidings. "He
wanted to save us, and therefore must die! The burden was too heavy,
the pillar has broken under the weight; the temple will plunge down
and bury us beneath its ruins, if we do not hasten to save
ourselves! Mirabeau's bequest was his counsel to speedy and secret
flight! We must follow his advice, we must remove from Paris. May
the spirit of Mirabeau enlighten the heart of the king, that he may
be willing to do what is necessary,--that he may be willing to leave
Paris!"
CHAPTER XVIII.
REVOLUTION IN THE THEATRE.
All Paris was again in commotion, fear, and uproar. The furies of
the revolution, the market-women, went howling again through the
streets on the 20th of June, 1791, uttering their horrid curses upon
the king and the Austrian woman, and hurling their savage words and
dirty songs against Madame Veto, against la chienne d'Autriche.
Around the Tuileries stood in immense masses the corps of the
National Guard, with grave and threatening mien, and with difficulty
holding back the people, who were filling the whole broad square in
front of the palace, and who could only with great effort be
prevented from breaking through those strong cordons of guards who
held both ends of the street leading to the Tuileries, and kept at
least the middle of the way free and open.
It was a way for the king, the queen, and the royal family, who were
to reenter Paris that day. Lafayette had, at the order of the
National Assembly, gone with some regiments of the guard to
Varennes, to conduct the king back to the capital. Thousands upon
thousands had hurried out after him in order to observe this return
of the representatives of monarchy, and to take part in this funeral
procession!
For it was a funeral of the monarchy which was celebrated that day;
and this great, heavy carriage, surrounded by soldiers, and the
ribald, mocking populace--this great carriage, which now drove along
the streets leading to the Tuileries, amid the thunder of cannon,
and the peals of bells from towers, was the funeral car of monarchy.
The king, the queen, the royal children, the sister of the king,
Madame Tourzel, and the two deputies whom the National Assembly had
sent to Varennes to accompany the royal family, Petion and Barnave,
were in this carriage.
They had tried to follow the advice of the dying Mirabean, and to
save themselves from the revolution. That was the offence of this
king and this queen, who were now brought back in triumph to the
Tuileries, the palace of kings, and from that time a royal prison.
Tri-colored banners waved from all roofs and from all windows;
placards were displayed everywhere, bearing in immense letters the
words: "Whoever applauds the king shall be scourged; whover insults
him shall be hanged!"
They had wished to escape, these unhappy ones, who are now brought
back from Varennes, where they were identified and detained. Now
they were returning, no longer the masters, but the prisoners of the
French nation! The National Assembly had passed a decree, whose
first article was: "The king is temporarily set aside from the
functions of royalty;" and whose second and third articles were,
"that so soon as the king and his family shall be brought back to
the Tuileries, a provisional watch shall be set over him, as well as
over the queen and the dauphin, which, under the command of the
general-in-chief of the National Guard of Paris, shall be
responsible for their safety and for their detention."
The king and the queen returned to Paris as prisoners, and Lafayette
was their jailer. The master of France, the many-headed King of the
French nation, was the National Assembly.
Sad, dreadful days of humiliation, of resignation, of perils and
anxieties, now followed for the royal family, the prisoners of the
Tuileries, who were watched day and night by spying eyes, and whose
doors must remain open day and night, in order that officers on
guard might look without hindrance into the apartments in which the
prisoners of the French nation lived.
During the first week after the sad return, the spirit of the queen
seemed to be broken, her energies to be impaired forever. She had no
more hope, no more fear; she threw out no new plans for escaping,
she neither worked nor wrote. She only sat still and sad for hours,
and before her eyes passed the dreadful pictures of the time just
gone by, presenting themselves with dreadful vividness, and in the
recollection anguishing her spirit. She recalled the excitement and
anxiety of the day which preceded the flight. She saw herself, as
with trembling hands she put on the garments of one of her waiting-
maids, and then disguised the dauphin in girl's clothes; she heard
the boy asking anew, with his pleasant smile: "Are we going to play
theatre, mamma queen?" Then she saw herself on the street alone,
waiting without any protection or company for the carriage which was
to take her up, after taking up at another place the king and the
two children. She recalled the drive in the dark night, the heat in
the close, heavy carriage, the dreadful alarm when suddenly, after a
twelve hours' drive, the carriage broke, and all dismounted to climb
the hill to the village which lay before them, and where they had to
wait till the carriage could be repaired. Then the journey on, the
delay in Varennea, the cry, "They are recognized." Then the
confusion, the march, the anguish of the hours following, and
finally that last hour of hope when, in the poor chamber of the
shopkeeper Sauce, his wife standing near the bed on which the little
prince slept, she conjured his wife to save the king and find him a
hiding-place. Then she heard again before her ears the woman's hard
voice answering her:
"Madame, it cannot be; I love my husband, too, and I also have
children, but my husband were lost if I saved yours." Then she heard
afresh the cries, the march; saw the arrival of the Paris regiments
and the deputies whom the National Assembly sent to conduct the
royal refugees back to Paris. Then she recalled the drive back,
crowded into the carriage with the deputies, and the ribald populace
roaring around. As she thought of all these things, a shudder ran
through the form of the unhappy queen, and tears streamed
unrestrainedly from her eyes.
But gradually she gained her composure and spirit, and even the
daily humiliation and trials which she encountered awakened in her
the fire and defiance of her earlier days.
The king and the queen were, after their return from Varennes, the
prisoners of their own people, and the Tuileries formed the prison
in which with never-sleeping cruelty the people watched their royal
captives.
The chiefs of the battalions constituting the National Guard took
turns in sentry duty over the royal couple. They had received the
rigid order to constantly watch the royal family, and not to leave
them for a moment alone. Even the sleeping-room of the queen was not
closed to the espionage of the guards; the door to the drawing-room
close by had always to be open, and in this drawing-room was the
officer of the guard. Even in the night, while the queen lay in her
bed, this door remained open, and the officer, sitting in an arm-
chair directly opposite to the door, kept his eyes directed to the
bed in which the queen sought to sleep, and wrestled with the pains
and fear which she was too proud to show to her persecutors. The
queen had stooped to make but one request; she had asked that at
least in the morning, when she arose and dressed, she might close
the doors of her sleeping-room, and they had been magnanimous enough
to comply with her wish.[Footnote: "Histoire de Marie Antoinette,"
par Edmondet Jules de Goneourt, p. 861.]
But Queen Marie Antoinette had met all these humiliations, these
disenchantments, and trials, full of hope of a change in her
fortune. Her proud soul was still unbroken, her belief in the
victory of monarchy under the favor of God animated her heart with a
last ray of hope, and sustained her amid all her misfortune. She
still would contend with her enemies for the love of this people, of
whom she hoped that, led astray by Jacobins and agitators, they
would at last confess their error, respect the voice of their king
and queen, and return to love and regretfulness. And Marie
Antoinette would sustain herself in view of the great day when the
people's love should be given back; she would seek to bring that day
back, and reconcile the people to the throne. On this account she
would show the people that she cherished no fear of them; that she
would intrust herself with perfect confidence to them, and greet
them with her smiles and all the favor of former days. She would
make one more attempt to regain her old popularity, and reawaken in
their cold hearts the love which the people had once displayed to
her by their loud acclamations. She found power in herself to let
her tears flow, not visibly, but within her heart; to disguise with
her smile the pain of her soul, and so she resolved to wear a
cheerful and pleasant face, and appear again publicly in the
theatre, as well as in open carriage-drives through the city.
They were then giving in the great opera-house Gluck's "Alceste,"
the favorite opera of the queen--the opera in which a few years
before she had received so splendid a triumph; in which the public
loudly encored, "Chantons, celebrons notre reine!" which the choir
had sung upon the stage, and, standing with faces turned toward the
royal box, had mingled their voices with those of the singers, and
repeated in a general chorus, "Chantons, celebrons notre reine!"
"I will try whether the public remembers that evening," said Marie
Antoinette, with a faint smile, to Mademoiselle de Bugois, the only
lady who had been permitted to remain with her; "I will go this
evening to the opera; the public shall at least see that I intrust
myself with confidence to it, and that I have not changed, however
much may have been changed around."
Mademoiselle de Bugois looked with deep sadness at the pale face of
the queen, that would show the public that she had not altered, and
upon which, once so fair and bright, grief had recorded its
ineradicable characters, and almost extinguished its old beauty.
Deeply moved, the waiting-lady turned away in order not to let the
tears be seen which, against her will, streamed from her eyes.
But Marie Antoinette had seen them nevertheless. With a sad smile
she laid her hand upon the shoulder of the lady-in-waiting. "Ah!"
said she, mildly, "do not conceal your tears. You are much happier
than I, for you can shed tears; mine have been flowing almost two
years in silence, and I have had to swallow them! [Footnote: Marie
Antoinette's own words.--See Goncourt, p. 264.]
"But I will not weep this evening," she continued, "I will meet
these Parisians at least in composure. Yes, I will do more, I will
try to smile to them. They hate me now, but perhaps they will
remember then that once they truly loved me. There is a trace of
magnanimity in the people, and my confidence will perhaps touch it.
Be quick, and make my toilet. I will be fair to-day. I will adorn
myself for the Parisians. They will not be my enemies alone who will
be at the theatre; some of my friends will be there, and they at
least will be glad to see me. Quick, mademoiselle, let us begin my
toilet."
And with a liveliness and a zeal which, in her threatened situation,
had something touching in it, Marie Antoinette arrayed herself for
the public, for the good Parisians.
The news that the queen was to appear that evening at the theatre
had quickly run through all Paris; the officer on duty told it at
his relief to some of the guards, they to those whom they met, and
it spread like wildfire. It was therefore very natural that, long
before the curtain was raised, the great opera-house was completely
filled, parquette, boxes, and parterre, with a passionately-excited
throng. The friends of the queen went in order to give her a long-
looked-for triumph; her enemies--and these the poor queen had in
overwhelming numbers--to fling their hate, their malice, their
scorn, into the face of Marie Antoinette.
And enemies of the queen had taken places for themselves in every
part of the great house. They even sat in the boxes of the first
rank, on those velvet-cushioned chairs which had formerly been
occupied exclusively by the enthusiastic admirers of the court, the
ladies and gentlemen of the aristocracy. But now the aristocracy did
not dare to sit there. The most of them, friends of the queen, had
fled, giving way before her enemies and persecutors; and in the
boxes where they once sat, now were the chief members of the
National Assembly, together with the leading orators of the clubs,
and the societies of Jacobins.
To the box above, where the people had once been accustomed to see
Princess Lamballe, the eyes of the public were directed again and
again. Marie Antoinette had been compelled to send away this last of
her friends to London, to have a conference with Pitt. Instead of
the fair locks of the princess, was now to be seen the head of a
man, who, resting both arms on the velvet lining of the box, was
gazing down with malicious looks into the surging masses of the
parterre. This man was Marat, once the veterinary of the Count
d'Artois, now the greatest and most formidable orator of the wild
Jacobins.
He too had come to see the hated she-wolf, as he had lately called
the queen in his "Ami du Peuple," and, to prepare for her a public
insult, sat drunk with vanity in the splendid box of the Princess
Lamballe; his friends and confidants were in the theatre, among them
Santerre the brewer, and Simon the cobbler, often looking up at
Marat, waiting for the promised motion which should be his signal
for the great demonstration.
At length the time arrived for the opera to begin, and, although the
queen had not come, the director of the orchestra did not venture to
detain the audience even for a few minutes. He went to his place,
took his baton, and gave the sign. The overture began, and all was
silent, in parquette and parterre, as well as in the boxes. Every
one seemed to be listening only to the music, equally full of
sweetness and majesty--only to have ears for the noble rhythm with
which Gluck begins his "Alceste."
Suddenly there arose a dull, suppressed sound in parquette,
parterre, and boxes, and all heads which had before been directed
toward the stage, were now turned backward toward the great royal
box. No one paid any more attention to the music, no one noticed
that the overture was ended and that the curtain was raised.
Amid the blast of trumpets, the noise of violins and clarionets, the
public had heard the light noise of the opening doors, had noticed
the entrance of the officers, and this sound had made the Parisians
forget even their much-loved music.
There now appeared in the open box-door a woman's form. The queen,
followed by Mademoiselle de Bugois, advanced slowly through the
great box to the very front. All eyes were directed to her, all
looks searched her pale, noble face.
Marie Antoinette felt this, and a smile flitted over her face like
the evening glow of a summer's day. With this smile and a deep blush
Marie Antoinette bowed and saluted the public.
A loud, unbounded cry of applause resounded through the vast room.
In the parquette and in the boxes hundreds of spectators arose and
hailed the queen with a loud, pealing "Vive la reine!" and clapped
their hands like pleased children, and looked up to the queen with
joyful, beaming countenances.
"Oh, my faith has not deceived!" whispered Marie Antoinette into the
ear of her companion. "The good Parisians love me still; they, like
me, remember past times, and the old loyalty is awaking in them."
And again she bowed her thanks right and left, and again the house
broke out into loud applause. A single, angry glance of Marat's
little eyes, peering out from beneath the bushy brows, met the
queen.
"Only wait," said Marat, rising from his seat and directing his
glances at the parterre. There stood the giant Santerre, and not far
from him Simon the cobbler, in the midst of a crowd of savage-
looking, defiant fellows, who all looked at their leaders, while
they, Santerre and Simon, directed their eyes up to the box of
Marat.
The glance of the chief met that of his two friends. A scornful,
savage expression swept over Marat's ash-colored, dirty face, and he
nodded lightly to his allies. Santerre and Simon returned the nod,
and they, turning to their companions, gave the signal by raising
the right hand.
Suddenly the applause was overborne by loud whistling and shouting,
derisive laughter, and wild curses.
"The civil war has begun!" cried Marat, rubbing his hands together
with delight.
The royalists continued to applaud and to shout, "Vive la reine!"
Their opponents tried to silence them by their hisses and whistling.
Marat's face glowed with demoniacal pleasure. He turned to the boxes
of the second tier, and nodded smilingly to the men who sat there.
At once they began to cry, "The chorus, the chorus, let them sing,
'Chantons, celebrons notre reine!'"
"Very well," said Marat. "I am a good royalist, for I have trained
the people to the cry."
"Sing, sing!" shouted the men to the performers on the stage--"sing
the chorus, 'Chantons, celebrons notre reine!'"
And in the boxes, parquette, everywhere was the cry, "Sing the
chorus, 'Chantons, celebrons notre reine!'"
"No," roared Santerre, "no, they shall not sing that!"
"No," cried Simon, "we will not hear the monkey-song!"
And hundreds of men in the parterre and the upper rows of boxes
echoed the cry, "No, we will not hear the monkey-song!"
"The thing works well!" said Marat. "I hold my people by a thread,
and make them gesticulate and spring up and down, like the concealed
man in a Punch and Judy show."
The noise went on; the royalists would not cease their applause and
their calls for the chorus, "Chantons, celebrons notre reine!" The
enemies of the queen did not cease hissing and shouting, "We do not
want to hear any thing about the queen; we will not hear the monkey-
song!"
"Oh, would I had never come here!" whispered the queen, with tearful
eyes, as she sank back in her armchair, and hid her face in her
handkerchief.
Perhaps because the real royalists saw the agitation of the queen,
and out of compassion for her were willing to give up the
controversy--perhaps Marat had given a sign to the false royalists
that they had had enough of shouting and confusion--at all events
the cry "Vive la reine" and the call for the chorus died away
suddenly, the applause ceased, and as the enemies of the queen had
now no opposition to encounter, nothing was left to them but to be
silent too.
"The first little skirmish is over!" said Marat, resting his bristly
head on the back of his velvet arm-chair. "Now we will listen to the
music a little, and look at the pretty theatre girls."
And in fact the opera had now begun; the director of the orchestra
had taken advantage of the return of quiet to give a sign to the
singers on the stage to begin at once, and with fortunate presence
of mind his command was obeyed.
The public, wearied it may be with the shouting and noise, remained
silent, and seemed to give its attention exclusively to the stage,
the development of the plot, and the noble music.
Marie Antoinette breathed freely again; her pale cheeks began to
have color once more, her eyes were again bright, and she seemed
transported beyond the sore battles and dreadful discords of her
life; she listened respectfully to the sweet melodies, and the grand
harmonies of the teacher of her youth, the great Gluck. Leaning back
in her armchair, she allowed the music to flow into her soul, and
the recollection of past days awoke afresh in her mind. She dreamed
of the days of her childhood: she saw herself again in Schonbrunn;
she saw her teacher Gluck enter the blue music-room, in which she
with her sisters used to wait for him; she saw the glowing
countenance of her mother, the great Maria Theresa, entering her
room, in order to give Gluck a proof of her high regard, and to
announce to him herself that Marie Antoinette had betrothed herself
to the Dauphin of France, and that she would soon bid her teacher
farewell, in order to enter upon her new and brilliant career.
A low hum in the theatre awakened the queen from her reveries; she
raised herself up and leaned forward, to see what was going on. Her
glance, which was directed to the stage, fell upon the singer
Clairval, who was just then beginning to give, with his wonderfully
full and flexible voice, the great aria in which the friend comes to
console the grief-burdened, weeping Queen Alceste, and to dry her
tears by assuring her of the love of her faithful adherents.
Clairval had advanced in the aria to that celebrated passage which
had given to Marie Antoinette a half year before her last great
triumph. It ran:
"Reine infortunee, ah! que ton coeur Ne soit plus navre de douleur!
Il vous reste encore des amis!"
But scarcely had Clairval begun the first strophe when the
thundering voice of Santerre called, "None of that, we will not hear
the air!"
"No, we will not hear the air!" shouted hundreds and hundreds of
voices.
"Poor Gluck," whispered Marie Antoinette, with tears in her eyes,
"because they hate me, they will not even hear your music!"
"Sing it, sing it!" shouted hundreds and hundreds of voices from all
parts of the house.
"No, do not sing it!" roared the others; "we will not hear the air."
And suddenly, above the cries of the contestants, rose a loud,
yelling voice:
"I forbid the singer Clairval ever again singing this air. I forbid
it in the name of the people!"
It was Marat who spoke these words. Standing on the arm-chair of the
Princess de Lamballe, and raising his long arms, and directing them
threateningly toward the stage, he turned his face, aglow with hate
and evil, toward the queen.
Marie Antoinette, who had turned her head in alarm in the direction
whence the voice proceeded, met with her searching looks the eyes of
Marat, which were fixed upon her with an expression equally stern
and contemptuous. She shrank back, and, as if in deadly pain, put
her hand to her heart.
"0 God!" she whispered to herself, "that is no man, that is an
infernal demon, who has risen there to take the place of my dear,
sweet Lamballe. Ah, the good spirit is gone, and the demon takes its
place--the demon which will destroy us all!"
"Long live Marat!" roared Santerre, and his comrades. "Long live
Marat, the great friend of the people, the true patriot!"
Marat bowed on all sides, stepped down from the easy-chair, and
seated himself comfortably in it.
Clairval had stopped in the air; pale, confused, and terrified, he
had withdrawn, and the director whispered to the orchestra and the
singers to begin the next number.
The opera went on, and the public again appeared to give itself
during some scenes to the enjoyment of the music. But soon this
short quiet was to be disturbed again. One of the singers, Madame
Dugazont, a zealous royalist, wanted to give the queen a little
triumph, and show her that, although Clairval had been silenced, the
love and veneration of Dugazont were still alive and ready to
display themselves.
Singing as the attendant of Alceste, Dugazont had these words to
give in her part: "Ah! comme faime la reine, comme faime ma
maitresse!"
She advanced close to the footlights, and turning her looks toward
the royal box, and bowing low, sang the words: "Comme faime la
reine, comme j'aime ma maitresse!"
And now, as if this had been the battle-cry of a new contest, a
fearful din, a raging torrent of sound began through the whole
house. At first it was a mixed and confused mass of cries, roars,
hisses, and applause. Now and then single voices could be heard
above the horrid chaos of sounds. "We want no queen!" shouted some.
"We want no mistress!" roared others; and mingled with those was the
contrary cry, "Long live the queen! Long live our mistress!"
"Hi!" said Marat, full of delight, twisting his bony form up into
all kinds of knots--" hi! this is the way they shout in hell. Satan
himself would like this!"
More and more horrible, more and more wild became the cries of the
rival partisans. Already embittered and exasperated faces were
confronting each other, and here and there clinched fists were seen,
threatening to bring a shouting neighbor to silence by the use of
violence.
The queen, trembling in every limb, had let her head fall
powerlessly on her breast, in order that no one might see the tears
which ran from her eyes over her death-like cheeks.
"0 God," whispered she, "we are lost, hopelessly lost, for not
merely our enemies injure us, and bring us into danger, but our
friends still more. Why must that woman turn to me and direct her
words to me? She wanted to give me a triumph, and yet she has
brought me a new humiliation." Suddenly she shrank back and raised
her head. She had caught the first tones of that sharp, mocking
voice, which had already pierced her heart, the voice of that evil
demon who now occupied the place of the good Princess Lamballe.
The voice cried: "The people of Paris are right. We want no queen!
And more than all other things, no mistress! Only slaves acknowledge
masters over them. If the Dugazont ventures to sing again, 'I love
my queen, I love my mistress,' she will be punished as slaves are
punished--that is, she will be flogged!"
"Bravo, Marat, bravo!" roared Santerre, with his savage rabble.
"Bravo, Marat, bravo!" cried his friends in the boxes; "she shall be
flogged!"
Marat bowed on all sides, and turned his eyes, gleaming with scorn
and hatred, toward the royal box, and menaced it with his clinched
fists.
"But not alone shall the singer be flogged," cried he, with a voice
louder and sharper than before--"no, not alone shall the singer be
flogged, but greater punishment have they deserved who urge on to
such deeds. If the Austrian woman comes here again to turn the heads
of sympathizing souls with her martyr looks, if she undertakes again
to move us with her tears and her face, we will serve her as she
deserves, we will go whip in hand into her box!" [Footnote:
Goneourt's "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 365.]
The queen rose from her chair like an exasperated lioness, and
advanced to the front of the box. Standing erect, with flaming looks
of anger, with cheeks like purple, she confronted them there--the
true heir of the Caesars, the courageous daughter of Maria Theresa--
and had already opened her lips to speak and overwhelm the traitor
with her wrath, when another voice was heard giving answer to Marat.
It cried: "Be silent, Marat, be silent. Whoever dares to insult a
woman, be she queen or beggar, dishonors himself, his mother, his
wife, and his daughter. I call on you all, I call on the whole
public, to take the part of a defenceless woman, whom Marat ventures
to mortally insult.
You all have mothers and wives; you may, perhaps, some day have
daughters. Defend the honor of woman! Do not permit it to be
degraded in your presence. Marat has insulted a woman; we owe her
satisfaction for it. Join with me in the cry, 'Long live the queen!
Long live Marie Antoinette!'"
And the public, carried away with the enthusiasm of this young,
handsome man, who had risen in his box, and whose slender, proud
figure towered above all--the public broke into one united stirring
cry: "Long live the queen! Long live Marie Antoinette!"
Marat, trembling with rage, his countenance suffused with a livid
paleness, sank back in his chair.
"I knew very well that Barnave was a traitor," he whispered. "I
shall remember this moment, and Barnave shall one day atone for it
with his head."
"Barnave, it is Barnave," whispered the queen to herself. "He has
rescued me from great danger, for I was on the point of being
carried away by my wrath, and answering the monster there as he
deserves."
"Long live the queen! Long live Marie Antoinette!" shouted the
public.
Marie Antoinette bowed and greeted the audience on all sides with a
sad smile, but not one look did she cast to the box where Barnave
sat, with not one smile did she thank him for the service he had
done her. For the queen knew well that her favor brought misfortune
to those who shared it; that he on whom she bestowed a smile was the
object of the people's suspicion.
The public continued to shout her name, but the queen felt herself
exhausted, and drawing back from the front of the box, she beckoned
to her companion. "Come," she whispered, "let us go while the public
are calling 'Long live Marie Antoinette!' Who knows whether they
will not be shouting in another minute, 'Away with the queen! we
want no queen!' It pains my ear so to hear that, so let us go."
And while the public were yet crying, Marie Antoinette left the box
and passed out into the corridor, followed by Mademoiselle Bugois
and the two officers in attendance. But the corridor which the queen
had to pass, the staircase which she had to descend in order to
reach her carriage, were both occupied by a dense throng. With the
swiftness of the wind the news had spread through Paris that the
queen was going to visit the opera that evening, and that her visit
would not take place without witnessing some extraordinary outbreak.
The royalists had hastened thither, to salute the queen, and at
least to see her on the way. The curious, the idle, and the hostile-
minded had come to see what should take place, and to shout as the
majority might shout. The great opera-house had therefore not
accommodated half who wanted to be present, and all those who had
been refused admittance had taken their station on the stairway and
the corridor, or before the main entrance. And it was natural that
those who stood before the door should, by their merely being there,
excite the curiosity of passers-by, so that these, too, stood still,
to see what was going on, and all pressed forward to the staircase
to see every thing and to hear every thing.
But the civil war which was raging within the theatre had given rise
'to battles outside as well; the same cries which had resounded
within, pealed along the path of the queen. She could only advance
slowly; closer and closer thronged the crowd, louder and louder
roared around Marie Antoinette the various battle-cries of the
parties, "Long live the queen!" "Long live the National Assembly!
Down with the queen!"
Marie Antoinette appeared to hear neither the one nor the other of
these cries. With proudly erected head, and calm, grave looks, she
walked forward, untroubled about the crowd, which the National Guard
before her could only break through by a recourse to threats and
violence, in order to make a passage for the queen.
At last the difficult task was done; at last she had reached her
carriage, and could rest upon its cushions, and, unobserved by
spying looks, could give way to her grief and her tears. But alas!
this consolation continued only for a short time. The carriage soon
stopped; the Tuileries, that sad, silent prison of the royal family,
was soon reached, and Marie Antoinette quickly dried her tears, and
compelled herself to appear calm.
"Do not weep more, Bugois," she whispered. "We will not give our
enemies the triumph of seeing that they have forced tears from us.
Try to be cheerful, and tell no one of the insults of this evening."
The carriage door was opened, the queen dismounted, and, surrounded
by National Guards and officers, returned to her apartments.
No one bade her welcome, no one received her as becomes a queen. A
few of the servants only stood in the outer room, but Marie
Antoinette had no looks for them. She had been compelled as a
constitutional queen ought, to dismiss her own tried and faithful
servants; her household had been reorganized, and she knew very well
that these new menials were her enemies, and served as spies for the
National Assembly. The queen therefore passed them without greeting,
and entered her sitting-room.
But even here she was not alone; the door of the ante-room was open,
and there sat the officer of the National Guard, whose duty of the
day it was to watch her.
Marie Antoinette had no longer the right of being alone with her
grief, no longer the right of being alone with her husband. The
little corridor which ran from the apartments of the queen to those
of the king, was always closed and guarded. When the king came to
visit his wife, the guard came too and remained, hearing every word
and standing at the door till the king retired. In like manner, both
entrances to the apartments of the queen were always watched; for
before the one sat an officer appointed by the National Assembly,
and before the other a member of the National Guard stood as sentry.
With a deep sigh the queen entered her sleeping-room. The officer
sat before the open door of the adjacent room, and looked sternly
and coldly in. For an instant an expression of anger flitted over
the face of the queen, and her lips quivered as though she wanted to
speak a hasty word. But she suppressed it, and withdrew behind the
great screen, in order to be disrobed by her two waiting-maids and
be arrayed in her night-dress.
Then she dismissed the maids, and coming out from behind the screen,
she said, loudly enough to be heard by the officer: "I am weary, I
will sleep."
At once he arose, and turning to the two guards, who stood at the
door of the anteroom, said:
"The queen is retiring, and the watch in the black corridor can
withdraw. The National Assembly has given command to lighten the
service of the National Guard, by withdrawing as much of the force
as possible. As long as the queen is lying in bed, two eyes are
enough to watch her, and they shall watch her well!"
The soldiers left the anteroom, and the officer returned to the
entrance of the sleeping-room. He did not, however, sit down in the
easy-chair before the door, but walked directly into the chamber of
the queen.
Marie Antoinette trembled and reached out her hand for the bell
which stood by her on the table.
"Be still, for God's sake, be still!" whispered the officer. "Make
no noise, your majesty. Look at my face." And, kneeling before the
queen, he raised his head and looked at her with an expression
almost of supplication. "I am Toulan," he whispered, "the faithful
servant of my queen. Will your majesty have the goodness to recall
me? Here is a letter from my patroness, Madame de Campan, who speaks
well for me. Will your majesty read it?"
The queen ran over the paper quickly and turned with a gentle smile
to the officer, who was still kneeling before her, and who, in all
her humiliation and misfortune, still paid her the homage due to
majesty.
"Stand up, sir," she said, mildly. "The throne lies in dust, and my
crown is so sadly broken, that it is no longer worth the trouble to
kneel before it."
"Madame, I see two crowns upon your noble head," whispered Toulan--
"the crown of the queen, and the crown of misfortune. To these two
crowns I dedicate my service and my fidelity, and for them I am
prepared to die. It is true, I can do but little for your majesty,
but that little shall be faithfully done. Thanks to my bitter hatred
of royalty, and my rampant Jacobinism, I have carried matters so
far, that I have been put upon the list of officers to keep watch,
and, therefore, once every week I shall keep guard before your
majesty's sleeping-room."
"And will you do me the favor to so put your chair that I shall not
see you--that during the night I may not always have the feeling of
being watched?" asked the queen, in supplicant tones.
"No, your majesty," said Toulan, moved. "I will remain in my chair,
but your majesty will prefer, perhaps, to turn the night into day,
and remain up; as during my nights you will not be disturbed."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Marie Antoinette, joyfully.
"I mean, that, as during the day your majesty can never speak with
the king without witnesses, we must call the night to our
assistance, if you wish to speak confidentially to his majesty. Your
majesty has heard, that during the night the watch is withdrawn from
the corridor, and your majesty is free to leave your room and go to
the chamber of the king."
A flash of joy passed over the countenance of the queen. "I thank
you, sir--I thank you to-day as a wife; perhaps the day may come
when I can thank you as a queen; I accept your magnanimous kindness.
Yes, I will turn the night into day, and, thanks to you, I shall be
able to spend several hours undisturbed with my husband and my
children. And do you say that you shall be here quite often?"
"Yes, your majesty, I shall be here once every week at your
majesty's order."
"Oh! I have lost the habit of ordering," said Marie Antoinette, with
a pained look. "You see that the Queen of France is powerless, but
she is not wholly unfortunate, for she has friends still. You belong
to these friends, sir; and that we may both retain the memory of
this day, I will always call you my faithful one."
No, the queen is not wholly unfortunate; she has friends who are
ready, with her, to suffer; with her, if it must be, to die. The
Polignacs are gone, but Princess Lamballe, whom the queen had sent
to London, to negotiate with Pitt, has returned, in spite of the
warnings and pleadings of the queen. Marie Antoinette, when she
learned that the princess was on the point of leaving England, had
written to her: "Do not come back at a moment so critical. You would
have to weep too much for us. I feel deeply, believe me, how good
you are, and what a true friend you are. But, with all my love, I
enjoin you not to come here. Believe me, my tender friendship for
you will cease only with death."
The warning of her royal friend had, meanwhile, not restrained
Princess Lamballe from doing what friendship commanded. She had
returned to France, and Marie Antoinette had, at least, the comfort
of having a tender friend at her side.
No, the queen was not wholly unfortunate. Besides this friend, she
had her children, too--her sweet, blooming little daughter, and the
dauphin, the pride and joy of her heart.
The dauphin had no suspicion of the woes and misfortunes which were
threatening them. Like flowers that grow luxuriantly and blossom
upon graves, so grew and blossomed this beautiful boy in the
Tuileries, which was nothing more than the grave of the old kingly
glory. But the dauphin was like sunshine in this dark, sad palace,
and Marie Antoinette's countenance lightened when her eye fell upon
her son, looking up to her with his tender, beaming face. From the
fresh, merry smile of her darling, she herself learned to smile
again, and be happy.
Gradually, after the first rage of the people was appeased, the
chains with which she was bound were relaxed. The royal family was
at least permitted to leave the close, hot rooms, and go down into
the gardens, although still watched and accompanied by the National
Guard. They were permitted to close the doors of their rooms again,
although armed sentries still stood before them.
There were even some weeks and months in this year 1791, when it
appeared as if the exasperated spirits would be pacified, and the
throne be reestablished with a portion of its old dignity. The king
had, in a certain manner, received forgiveness from the National
Assembly, while accepting the constitution and swearing--as indeed
he could but swear, all power having been taken from him, and he
being a mere lay-figure--that would control all his actions, and
govern according to the expressed will of the National Assembly.
But the king, in order to make peace with his people, had even made
this sacrifice, and accepted the constitution. The people seemed
grateful to him for this, and appeared to be willing to return to
more friendly relations. The queen was no longer insulted with
contemptuous cries when she appeared in the garden of the Tuileries,
or in the Bois de Boulogne, and it even began to be the fashion to
speak about the dauphin as a miracle of loveliness and beauty, and
to go to the Tuileries to see him working in his garden.
This garden of the dauphin was in the immediate neighborhood of the
palace, at the end of the terrace on the river-side; it was
surrounded with a high wire fence, and close by stood the little
pavilion where dwelt Abbe Davout, the teacher of the dauphin. The
dauphin had had in Versailles a little garden of his own, which he
himself worked, planted, and digged, and from whose flowers he
picked a bouquet every morning, to bring it with beaming countenance
to his mamma queen.
For this painfully-missed garden of Versailles, the little garden on
the terrace had to compensate. The child was delighted with it; and
every morning, when his study-hours were over, the dauphin hastened
to his little parterre, to dig and to water his flowers. The garden
has, since that day, much changed; it is enlarged, laid out on a
different plan, and surrounded with a higher fence, but it still
remains the garden of the Dauphin Louis Charles, the same garden
that Napoleon subsequently gave to the little King of Borne; the
same that Charles X. gave to the Duke de Bordeaux, and that Louis
Philippe gave to the Count de Paris. How many recollections cluster
around this little bit of earth, which has always been prematurely
left by its young possessors! One died in prison scarcely ten years
old; another, hurried away by the tempest, still younger, into a
foreign land, only lived to hear the name of his father, and see his
dagger before he died. The third and fourth were hurled out by the
storm-wind like the first two, and still wear the mantle of exile in
Austria and England. And many as are the tears with which these
children regard their own fate, there must be many which they must
bestow upon the fate of their fathers. One died upon the scaffold,
another from the knife of an assassin, a third from a fall upon the
pavement of a highway; and the last, the greatest of them all, was
bound, like Prometheus, to a rock, and fed on bitter recollections
till he met his death.
This little garden, on the river-side terrace of the Tuileries park,
which has come to have a world-wide interest, was then the Eldorado
of the little Dauphin of Prance; and to see him behind the fence was
the delight of the Parisians who used to visit there, and long for
the moment when the glance of his blue eye fell upon them, and for
some days and months had again become enthusiastic royalists.
When the prince went into his little garden, he was usually
accompanied by a detachment of the National Guard, who were on duty
in the Tuileries; and the dauphin, who was now receiving instruction
in the use of weapons, generally wore himself the uniform of a
member of the National Guard. The Parisians were delighted with this
little guard of six years. His picture hung in all stores, it was
painted on fans and rings, and it was the fashion, among the most
elegant ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain, and among the market-
women as well, to decorate themselves with the likeness of the
dauphin. How his brow beamed, how his eye brightened, when,
accompanied by his escort, of which he was proud, he entered his
garden! When the retinue was not large, the prince took his place in
the ranks. One day, when all the National Guards on duty were very
desirous of accompanying him, several of them were compelled to
stand outside of the garden. "Pardon me, gentlemen," said the
dauphin; "it is a great pity that my garden is so small that it
deprives me of the pleasure of receiving you all." Then he hastened
to give flowers to every one who was near the fence, and received
their thanks with great pleasure.
The enthusiasm for the dauphin was so great, that the boys of Paris
envied their elders the honor of being in his service, and longed to
become soldiers, that they might be in his retinue. There was, in
fact, a regiment of boys formed, which took the name of the
Dauphin's Regiment. The citizens of Paris were anxious to enroll the
names of their sons in the lists of this regiment, and to pay the
expenses of an equipment. And when this miniature regiment was
formed, with the king's permission, it marched to the Tuileries, in
order to parade before the dauphin.
The prince was delighted with the little regiment, and invited its
officers to visit his garden, that they might see his flowers, his
finest treasures. "Would you do us the pleasure to be the colonel of
our regiment?" one of the officers asked the dauphin.
"Oh! certainly," he answered.
"Then you must give up getting flowers and bouquets for your mamma!"
said one of the boys.
"Oh!" answered the dauphin, with a smile, "that will not hinder my
taking care of my flowers. Many of these gentlemen have little
gardens, too, as they have told me. Very well, they can follow the
example of their colonel, and love the queen, and then mamma will
receive whole regiments of flowers every day."
The majority of this regiment consisted, at the outset, of children
of the highest ranks of society, and it was therefore natural that
they, practiced in the most finished courtesy, should pay some
deference to their young colonel.
But they were expressly forbidden showing any thing of this feeling
toward their comrade. "For," said the king, "I want him to have
companions who will stimulate his ambition; but I do not want him to
have flatterers, who shall lead him to live to himself alone." Soon
the number of little soldiers increased, for every family longed for
the honor of having its sons in the regiment of the royal dauphin.
The people used always to throng in great masses when this regiment
went through its exercises in the Place de la Carrousel. It was a
miniature representation of the French guards, with their three-
cornered hats and white jackets; and nothing could be more charming
than this regiment of blooming boys in their tasteful uniforms, and
their little chief, the dauphin, looking at his regiment with
beaming eyes and smiling lips.
The enthusiasm of the little soldiers of the Royal Dauphin Regiment
for their colonel was so great, that they longed to give him a proof
of their love. One day the officers of the regiment came into the
Tuileries and begged the king's permission to make a present to the
dauphin, in the name of the whole regiment. The king gladly acceded
to their request--, and he himself conducted the little officers
into the reception-room, where was the dauphin, standing at the side
of his mother.
The little colonel hastened to greet them. "Welcome, my comrades,
welcome!" cried he, extending his hand to them. "My mamma queen
tells me that you have brought me something which will give me
pleasure. But it gives me pleasure to see you, and nothing more is
needed."
"But, colonel, you will not refuse our present?"
"Oh, certainly not, for my papa king says that a colonel is not
forbidden taking a gift from his regiment. What is it?"
"Colonel, we bring you a set of dominoes," said a little officer,
named Palloy, who was the speaker of the delegation--" a set of
dominoes entirely made out of the ruins of the Bastile."
And taking the wrapper from the white marble box, bound with gold,
he extended it to the dauphin, and repeated with a solemn face the
following lines:
"Those gloomy walls that once awoke our fear Are changed into the
toy we offer here: And when with joyful race the gift you view,
Think what the people's mighty love can do." [Footnote: "De ces aff
reux cachota, la terreur des Francais, Vous voyez les debris
transformes en hoohets; Puissent-ils, en servant aux jeux de votre
enfance, Du peuple vous prouver 1'amour et la puissance."
Beauchesne, "Louis XVD. Sa Vie, sou Agonie," etc., vol. iv., p.
396.]
Poor little dauphin! Even when they wanted to do him homage, they
were threatening him; and the present which affection offered to the
royal child was at the same time a bequest of Revolution, which even
then lifted her warning finger, and pointed at the past, when the
hate of the people destroyed those "gloomy walls," which had been
erected by kingly power.
In his innocence and childish simplicity, the dauphin saw nothing of
the sting which, unknown even to the givers, lurked within this
gift. He enjoyed like a child the beautiful present, and listened
with eagerness while the manner of playing the game was described to
him. All the stones were taken from the mantel of black marble in
the reception-room of Delaunay, the governor of the Bastile, who had
been murdered by the people. On the back of each of these stones was
a letter set in gold, and when the whole were arranged in regular
order, they formed the sentence: "Vive le Roi, vive la Reine, et M.
le Dauphin." The marble of the box was taken from the altar-slab in
the chapel. In the middle was a golden relief, representing a face.
"That is my papa king," cried the dauphin, joyfully, looking at the
representation.
"Yes," replied Palloy, the speaker of the little company, "every one
of us bears him in his heart. And like the king, you will live for
the happiness of all, and like him you will be the idol of Prance.
We, who shall one day be French soldiers and citizens, bring to you,
who will then be our commander-in-chief and king, our homage as the
future supporters of the throne which is destined for you, and which
the wisdom of your father has placed under the unshakable power of
law. The gift which we offer you is but small, but each one of us
adds his heart to it." [Footnote: The very words of the little
officer.]
"And I give all of you my heart in return for it," cried the
dauphin, with a joyful eagerness, "and I shall take great pains to
be good, and to learn well, that I may be allowed to amuse myself
with playing dominoes."
And the little fellow fixed his large, blue eyes upon the queen with
a tender look, took her hand and pressed it to his lips.
"My dear mamma queen," he said, caressingly, "if I am real good, and
study hard, we can both play dominoes together, can't we?"
A sad smile played around the lips of the queen, and no one saw the
distrustful, timid look which she cast at the box, which to her was
merely the memorial of a dreadful day.
"Yes, my child," she replied, mildly, "we will play dominoes often
together, for you certainly will be good and industrious."
She controlled herself sufficiently to thank the boys with friendly
words for the present which they had made to the dauphin, and then
the deputation, accompanied by the king and the little prince,
withdrew. But as soon as they had gone, the smile died away upon her
lips, and with an expression of horror she pointed to the box.
"Take it away--oh, take it away!" she cried, to Madame de Tourzel.
"It is a dreadful reminder of the past, a terrible prophecy of the
future. The stones of the Bastile, which the people destroyed, lie
in this box! And the box itself, does it not look like a
sarcophagus? And this sarcophagus bears the face of the king! Oh,
the sorrow and woe to us unfortunate ones, who can not even receive
gifts of love without seeing them obscured by recollections of hate,
and who have no joys that have not bitter drops of grief mingled
with them! The revolution sends us storm-birds, and we are to regard
them as doves bringing us olive-branches. Believe me, I see into the
future, and I discern the deluge which will drown us all!"
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER XIX.
JUNE 20 AND AUGUST 10, 1792.
Marie Antoinette was right. The revolution was sending its storm-
birds to the Tuileries. They beat with their strong pinions against
the windows of the palace; they pulled up and broke with their claws
the flowers and plants of the garden, so that the royal family no
longer ventured to enter it. But they had not yet entered the palace
itself; and within its apartments, watched by the National Guard,
the queen was at least safe from the insults of the populace.
No, not even there longer, for the storm-birds of the revolution
beat against the windows, and these windows had once in a while to
be opened to let in a little sunshine, and some fresh air. Marie
Antoinette had long given up her walks in the garden of the
Tuileries, for the rabble which stood behind the fence had insulted
her so often with cries and acts, that she preferred to give up her
exercise rather than to undergo such contemptuous treatment.
The king, too, in order to escape the scornful treatment of the
populace, had relinquished his walks, and before long things came to
such a pass that the dauphin was not allowed to visit his little
garden. Marat, Santerre, Danton, and Robespierre, the great leaders
of the people, had, by their threats against the royalists and their
insurrectionary movements among the people, gained such power, that
no one ventured to approach the garden of the prince to salute him,
and show deference to the son of the king. The little regiment had
been compelled, in order to escape the mockery and contempt, the
hatred and persecution which followed them, to disband after a few
months; and around the fence, when the dauphin appeared, there now
stood none but men sent there by the revolutionists to deride the
dauphin when he appeared, and shout their wild curses against the
king and queen.
One day, when a crowd of savage women stood behind the fence, and
were giving vent to their derision of the queen, the poor dauphin
could not restrain his grief and indignation. With glowing cheeks
and flaming eyes he turned upon the wild throng.
"You lie --oh, you lie!" he cried, with angry voice. "My mamma queen
is not a wicked woman, and she does not hate the people. My mamma
queen is so good, so good that--"
His tears choked his voice, and flowed in clear streams down over
his cheeks. Ashamed, as it were, of this indication of weakness, the
dauphin dashed out of the garden, and hastened so rapidly to the
palace that the Abbe Davout could scarcely follow him. Weeping and
sobbing, the dauphin passed through the corridor, but when they
reached the broad staircase which led to the apartments where the
queen lived, the dauphin stopped, suppressed his sobs, and hastily
dried his eyes.
"I will not weep any more," he said, "it would trouble mamma. I beg
you, abbe, say nothing to mamma. I will try to be cheerful and
merry, for mamma queen likes much to have me so. Sometimes, when she
is sad and has been weeping, I make believe not to notice it, and
then I laugh and sing, and jump about, and then her beautiful face
will clear up, and sometimes she even smiles a little. So, too, I
will be right merry, and she shall notice nothing. You would not
suspect that I have been weeping, would you?"
"No, my prince, no one would think you had," answered the abbe,
looking with deep emotion into the great blue eyes which the dauphin
turned up to his with an inquiring look.
"Well, then, we will go to my mamma queen," cried the dauphin, and
he sprang forward and opened the door with a smile, and, half
concealed behind the curtains, he asked, in a *jesting tone, whether
he might have permission to enter her majesty's presence.
Marie Antoinette bade him heartily welcome, and opened her arms to
him. The dauphin embraced her and pressed a glowing kiss upon her
eyes and upon her lips.
"You are extraordinarily affectionate to-day, my little Louis
Charles," said the queen, with a smile. "What is the cause of that?"
"That comes from the fact that to-day I have nothing to give you
excepting kisses--not a single flower. They are all withered in my
garden, and I do not like to go there any more, for there are no
more bouquets to pluck for my dear mamma queen. Mamma, this is my
bouquet."
And he kissed and caressed the queen afresh, and brought a glow to
her eyes and a smile to her lips.
"Come now, my child, you see that the abbe is waiting, and I believe
it is time for the study-hours to begin. "What comes first to-day?"
"We have first, grammar," answered the abbe, laying the needful
books upon the little table at which the dauphin always took his
lessons in the presence of the queen.
"Grammar!" cried the dauphin; "I wish it were history. That I like,
but grammar I hate!"
"That comes because you make so many mistakes in it," said the abbe;
"and, certainly, grammar is very hard."
The child blushed. "Oh, it is not on that account," he said. "I do
not dislike grammar because it is hard, but merely because it is
tedious."
"And I will wager that on that account you have forgotten what we
went over in our last grammar hour. We were speaking of the three
comparatives. But you probably do not remember them."
"You are mistaken," replied the dauphin, smiling. "In proof, hear
me. If I say, 'My abbe is a good abbe,' that is the positive. If I
say, 'My abbe is better than another abbe,' that is the comparative.
And," he continued, turning his eyes toward the queen with an
expression of intense affection, "if I say, 'My mamma is the dearest
and best of all mammas,' that is the superlative." [Footnote: The
dauphin's own words.--See Beauchesne's "Louis XVII.," vol. i., p.
133.]
The queen drew the boy to her heart and kissed him, while her tears
flowed down upon his auburn curls.
On the next day, at the time of his accustomed walk, the queen went
into the dauphin's room to greet him before he went into the garden.
"Mamma, I beg your permission to remain here," said the dauphin. "My
garden does not please me any longer."
"Why not, my son," asked Marie Antoinette, "has any thing happened
to you?"
"Yes, mamma," he answered, "something has happened to me. There are
so many bad people always standing around the fence, and they look
at me with such evil eyes, that I am afraid of them, and they scold
and say such hard things. They laugh at me, and say that I am a
stupid jack, a baker's boy that does not know how to make a loaf,
and they call me a monkey. That angers me and hurts my feelings, and
if I begin to cry I am ashamed of myself, for I know that it is very
silly to cry before people who mean ill to us. But I am still a poor
little boy, and my tears are stronger than I. And so I want you,
mamma, not to let me go to the garden any more. Moufflet and I would
a great deal rather play in my room. Come here, Moufflet, make your
compliments to the queen, and salute her like a regular grenadier."
And smiling, he caught the little dog by the fore-paws, and made him
stand up on his hind legs, and threatened Moufflet with his hand
till he made him stand erect and let his fore feet hang down very
respectfully.
The queen looked down with a smile at the couple, and laughed aloud
when the dauphin, still waving his hand threateningly to compel the
dog to stand as he was, jumped up, ran to the table, caught up a
paper cap, which he had made and painted with red stripes, and put
it on Moufflet's head, calling out to him: "Mr. Jacobin, behave
respectfully! Make your salutations to her majesty the queen!"
After that day, the dauphin did not go into his garden again, and
the park of the Tuileries was now the exclusive property of the
populace, that took possession of it with furious eagerness.
The songs of the revolution, the wild curses of the haters of
royalty, the coarse laughter and shouting of the rabble--these were
the storm birds which were beating at the windows of the royal
apartments.
Marie Antoinette had still one source of enjoyment left to her in
her sufferings, her correspondence with her absent friends, and the
Duchess de Polignac before all others. Once in a while there was a
favorable opportunity to send a letter by the hands of some faithful
friend around her, and the queen had then the sad satisfaction at
least of being able to express to some sympathizing heart what she
was undergoing, without fearing that these complaints would be read
by her enemies, as was the case with all letters which were sent by
post.
One of these letters to the Duchess de Polignac, which history has
preserved, gives a faithful and touching picture of the sorrows and
grief of the queen. A translation of it runs thus:
"I cannot deny myself the pleasure of embracing you, my dear heart,
but it must be done quickly, for the opportunity is a passing one,
although a certain one. I can only write a word, which will be
forwarded to you with a large package. We are guarded like
criminals, and this restraint is truly dreadfully hard to bear!--
constantly too apprehensive for one another, not to be able to
approach the window without being loaded with insults; not to be
able to take the poor children out into the air without exposing the
dear innocents to reproaches, what a situation is ours, my dear
heart! And when you think that I suffer not for myself alone, but
have to tremble for the king as well, and for our friends who are
with us, you will see that the burden is well-nigh unbearable! But,
as I have told you before, you absent ones, you keep me up. Adieu,
dear heart, let us hope in God, who looks into our consciences, and
who knows whether we are not animated by the truest love for this
land. I embrace you!
"P. S.--The king has just come in and wants to add a word."
"I will only say, duchess, that you are not forgotten, that we
regret receiving so few letters from you, and that, whether near or
far away, you and yours are always loved. Louis." [Footnote:
Beauchesne "Louis XVII," vol. 1., p. 143.]
Not to be able to show one's self near the window without being
showered with insults! Yes, and even into the very middle of her
room they followed her. Even when sitting far away from the window,
she could not help hearing the loud cries which were thundered out
on the pavement below, as the hucksters offered to the laughing
crowd the infamous pamphlet, written with a poisoned pen, and
entitled "The Life of Marie Antoinette."